Women teachers have delivered a petition to the Ministry of Education demanding that their pay is made equal to that of their male counterparts. They delivered their petition to Noura Al-Faiz, Deputy Minister of Education for Girls' Education. Mona Abdul Aziz, head of the teachers' six-member coordinating committee submitted the demand to the deputy minister at her office in Riyadh Wednesday. The committee represents 97,000 women teachers from all parts of the Kingdom. They want all those women employed in 2002, 2003 and 2004 to have their salaries adjusted equal to that of men. The deputy minister promised the committee members that it would look into their complaint and take action. Mona Abdul Aziz said she had discovered that the deputy minister had no idea about the differences in the pay scale of female and male teachers who were employed during those three consecutive years. The deputy minister had promised she would investigate the matter with the official in charge of financial affairs at the ministry, she said. She said the committee had explained to Al-Faiz the “injustice” of the situation, where women teachers employed in those years were placed on a lower salary scale compared to their male peers although they had the same qualifications. She said the committee had a statement made earlier by Saleh Al-Humaid, Director of the Finance Department at the ministry, in which he blamed the discrepancies in the salary scale to mistakes made before the merger of the General Presidency for Girls' Education and Ministry of Education. The Presidency and the ministry were merged in 2003. She said the discrepancy in the salary scale between the male and female teachers continued after their merger, especially with respect to the transport allowance, annual salary increase and cost of living allowance. She said that the teachers' committee had provided the deputy minister with all documents showing the discrepancies in salaries and allowances.
